Morning Catholic must-reads: 22/04/13

“You are pastors, not functionaries” Pope Francis told 10 men yesterday after he ordained them to the priesthood in St Peter’s Basilica (full text, full video).

Behind every vocation there is “always the strong and intense prayer of someone: a grandmother, a grandfather, a mother, a father, a community”, the Pope said in his Regina Caeli address (full text, full video).

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lewispbuckingham

. ‘This letter is credited by President Obama as
being a tipping point in the passage of the bill. The U.S. Conference of
Catholic bishops opposed the bill because their staff claimed that
there was federal funding for abortion in it. Since its passage, at
least two federal courts have agreed with my lawyerly reading of the
bill and found as a matter of law that there is no federal funding of
abortion in the bill. We were correct in our interpretation, and the
bishops’ staff was wrong. But we continue to be criticized by them because we disagreed in public.’
Re Sister Campbell’s reading or the law.
But then it did enforce employers to pay for insurance for abortion.So although it be true that the Fed’s did not pay for it ,it is true that they intend to make someone else to pay for it.
And if they don’t, they get fined.
So from a non lawerly perspective the end was the same, funded death for the innocent unborn.
Its no good banging on about the ‘preferential option for the poor’, without actually defending them, particularly when voiceless.

Karla M

A number of times I have seen National Catholic Reporter by cited as a link in these morning Catholic news reads. Bishop Robert Finn has written ….’In the last months I have been deluged with emails and other correspondence from Catholics concerned about the editorial stances of the Reporter: officially condemning Church teaching on the ordination of women, insistent undermining of Church teaching on artificial contraception and sexual morality in general, lionizing dissident theologies while rejecting established Magisterial teaching, and a litany of other issues.’

‘The state should “recognise the union of persons of the same sex” but not equate such unions with marriage between a man and a woman, Vatican Archbishop Piero Marini has said.’

What the state recognises by way of setting legitimate limits as terms and conditions binding on contracts – even inherently sinful ones .. like the extreme usury of bankers – is important. This applies to concubinage just as much as to marriage, it even applies to prostitution and sexual appetite in regard to relationships (controlling liberty to engage in any or all with public permission). However, Archbishop Marini’s point is rather different; he is not addressing the application of moral reason as the divine law revealed to man’s natural perception, he seeks to make a break between the divine love witnessed in the teaching of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and the human love he expects the new pope to support .. in ‘talking about positive things’ sic (dear Lord help our poor Holy Father Pope Francis, the insidiousness of the Devil already swirls about him, and banal positivism cannot hope to exercise that baleful influence).

“It’s a breath of fresh air, it’s opening a window onto springtime and onto hope. We had been breathing the waters of a swamp, and it had a bad smell. We’d been in a church afraid of everything, with problems such as Vatileaks and the pedophilia scandals. With Francis we’re talking about positive things; he puts the emphasis on the positive and talks about offering hope.”

God Bless Our Pope, and protect him from those who seek to progressively advance his tenuous rule out of his hands .. with interviews, creepy leaks and the miasma of Vatican politics.

polycarped

Glitter: hear, hear. I also raised this recently on this forum – the Catholic Herald shouldn’t have anything to do with the anti-Catholic US rag that is the National ‘Catholic’ Reporter – or they should at least make a very explicit reference as to its ‘catholic’ credentials (i.e. none – as clarifed by Bishops Finn and Sheridan) each time a link is shared.

Alba

A new Archbishop of Buenos Aires was installed on Saturday….hope he came with all the fixtures and fittings and a Corgi guarantee. Really, even Anglicans enthrone their prelates. Enough of this mealy mouthed nu-church speak.